All about Myanmar!!!!

October 30th, 2005
I am back on the ship for good in Myanmar although the ship will stayed docked at the pier with an expected departure in a day and a half waiting for the tide to be just right for the water level to be high enough in the river to take us to the ocean. How can I start telling you about Myanmar without first asking for prayer for my uncle’s surgery on the 31st of October that all will go well. And second taking a moment to consider the implications of what happened in New Delhi, India yesterday. Also a lesser known issue of a cyclone hitting Chennai, India where the ship was docked dumping half a meter of rain in two days. It’s amazing how good God is at watching out for us on our travels. I can’t even begin to imagine what it would have been like if we had not left India when we did. My heart truly does hurt for the people of India, and at this time I have not been able to talk with Ammo to see weather he has been able to get in touch with his parents, family and friends to see if they are ok. I also just got done reading about ten or so emails from the week some that brought tears to my eyes thinking and missing friends and family from home. So I believe that I will write my blog write up for Myanmar tomorrow or the next day. Love and miss all of you.


November 2, 2005

Wow, things have been really busy for me on the ship considering I had like 3 papers in progress and two tests before we arrive in Vietnam in three days. We are at sea today, then we will enter the pirates water area where there is known to be modern day pirates and we are supposed to have some sort of military escorts. With crew from our ship standing out on deck with the industrial sized fire hozes to spray at any boats that try to come along side pretty interesting. Then tomorrow we will be docked in Singapore for refueling although because of immigration and things with the short amount of time we will be there we will not be allowed off the ship. Then we will have one day at sea then we will be in Vietnam where I will probably be posting this at.

Myanmar is definitely better than I expected (when given that I had very low expectations for it) to begin with. It truly is a beautiful country once you get out of the city with amazing people. A lot of you I know, know nothing about Myanmar or even where it is. It actually borders between India and Thailand. And is a military dictatorship that has no respect for human rights. Almost all the freedoms that we enjoy in the states are not so in Myanmar. In fact in 1990 there was a call for Democracy from the people so the military government allowed elections thinking that they would still win. It was a landslide victory by the Democratic Party by over 80% of the votes. Although the military government would not accept the results, and put the women who one the election under house arrest where she remains today. Actually she is the only Nobel peace prize winner to be in prison at present time. I will now try to recount my travels and thoughts day by day.

October 25th, 2005
We arrived in the river early this morning making our way to the port trying to use the high tied to our advantage. Where the ship is docked is a very commercial shipping yard that is actually about an hours bus ride to Yangon the largest city that is also the capital. I woke up this morning at about 5 am though, to some of the worst stomach pains of my life. It felt like someone was taking a knife and stabbing the insides. I got up and tried to eat but all I could get down was a small croissant. I was later able to eat a light lunch although I had to work hard not to later throw it up and felt very weak. I then took the bus rid into town with Nick Erin and Holly planning to start our whirlwind trip around the country. The bus dropped us off at the center of Yangon at the Traders Hotel. Which was the one that had the small bomb that went off about a week before that I had typed about. There was no noticeable damage to the hotel, but there were security guards at all the entrances with medal detectors checking everyone’s bags. The hotel was really nice on the standards of a typical Hilton which we would soon learn that it will be really hard to find hotels like this in Myanmar. I end up seeing one of the nurses from the ship and tell her about my sickness, I had thought that it might have been from me taking my malaria medicine several hours after I had eaten which you are suppose to take with food. She said that the medicine that I was taking would not have those side effects, which made me feel a little bit uneasy. We ended up finding a travel agent to talk to and plan out the trip and decide how we would go from place to place. It was decided that they would spend the night in Yangon then catch the 6am flight to Mandalay the next morning. It was then that I decided that it would be smart for me to return back to the ship to seek American Medical care and rest up hoping that later on in the week I would feel good enough to explore Myanmar.
When I got back to the ship and asked the purser to page the medical staff (because while in port the office hours are 7 to 7:30 am. And on ship from 8-9am and 5-6pm wouldn’t you love to be a doctor on a cruise ship). A side note though is that before we arrive in each port they give us a fact sheet with all the emergency information that includes stuff like the Duty Dean and cell phone number for each day, as well as the on duty medical staffs name and cell phone number. Anyways I come to find out that the medical person on duty had left to go into town to eat dinner. So in my head I am thinking ok……so its an hour into town and assuming that they are able to get off the bus, find a restaurant, eat, get back on the bus that was suppose to leave an hour later…that would mean that they would be gone from the ship for at least three hours. Now, how is that an on duty medical personnel that it is going to take a minimum of three hours away from the ship. I mean it would be different if it was like in South Africa and there were restaurants steps away from the ship where they could be back on the ship in a matter a five minutes if necessary. The purser told me that they could page them if it was an emergency…lets just say I was a little upset. So I set my alarm about the three hours later and they still hadn’t made their way back onboard the ship. I ended up sleeping around 12 hours that night.

October 26th, 2005
This morning I wake up to my alarm at 7 am and go down to the ships hospital to find a full room of people. The nurse that I talked to the day before at the hotel was on duty and took me straight into an exam room. She took my temperature which was only 96.6 (although I had been taking Tylenol throughout the night), checked blood pressure, breathing, and did some pushing around on my stomach. I felt much better this morning but felt as if I could of slept another 12 hours though. She told me that she didn’t know what it was but told me to treat any symptoms as they occur with either pepto or Tylenol.
I ended up meeting up with friends at breakfast that told me that they planned on leaving in a little while to do a whirlwind trip of the country. So I felt strong enough to make my way with them. We checked with the whole bus and train schedule but it was like 12 hours to Mandalay or Bagan and we all wanted to do it on a budget so planes were out of the question. So we rented a car for 60 US for the day to take us to Bago which is about 1.5 hours outside of Yangon where the famous reclining Buddha statues are.
We first went to lunch and meet up with friends who wanted to go to Mandalay then Bagan, then back to Yangon all on 90 US and they were sure they could do it. We thought that this sounded like fun so we decided to do it with them. We bought bus tickets for the night bus which was suppose to take 12 hours to Mandalay leaving at 6:45pm. We spent the rest of the day hanging out around Bago seeing the reclining Buddha’s and we even meet a group of children which was fun to play with them. They were as usual very intrigued by the digital camera as they had never seen one before. And for that case never seen a white person before. We ended up making our way back to a restaurant right next to the shop where you buy the bus tickets. And let a German couple who was a doctor that we had meet during the day take our car back into Yangon since it was headed there anyway. The restaurant was good, and as time progressed and the darker it got outside the more it filled up with locals. I am not sure if it was because it was normally a good restaurant or if it was because they wanted to get a look at the funny Americans.
The buses coming from Yangon ended up being 1.15 hours late. It was soo funny when we got onboard because it was crammed full of Burmese people who all looked liked they had never seen an American before, either that or they were so shocked to seem them on one of these buses. The buses along with all the cars because of the military dictatorship all of them are old and from Japan (much like Cuba in the since of the old cars). Now let’s take a minute to think about the requirements for a typical Japanese person compared to an American. You have heard stories of no leg room, there was so much lack of leg room that I could not have my knees stay in front of me, they had to hang over the arm rest that didn’t move into the aisle. As time progressed the air-conditioning that had been so heavily advertised to us stopped working after the first 30 minutes or so which then started to drain on the people that were on the window seats which much of our group was. It was funny because I would fall asleep to either a Burmese movie or one time George of the Jungle in Burmese and you know how when you wake up especially when you know you are out of your typical surroundings you do the right to left look checking out your surroundings it is something that everyone always does. Well when I did this my eyes always got caught on the guy sitting next to me that had his head completely turned to me starring at me. So I pretended that I really didn’t notice and did the look around and inconspicuously did the “is he still staring at me look” which of course he was. Every time I woke up that night he was staring at me….it was soo funny…..his neck had to have hurt from being bent like that the whole time. I don’t know if he was scared of me, or if he was just so confused with the whole situation as we all were.
Throughout the course of the night, there was this thing that really drived the nail in reassuring us that we were in a military dictatorship government where all of the people were scared of the military. Because at least three time during the night the bus would stop and everyone would get out there “papers” and get off the bus. The first time this happened we got out our passports and were trying to make our way off too because we were in back of the bus….but the bus driver would not let us off of the bus. We could see them checking the different peoples papers then they would come onto the bus and move around the bags and check under the seats obviously looking at people. One time we handed them our passports that he looked at for two seconds then smiled and handed them back. We had been told by many of the locals that “big brother” is always watching. We knew that this was definitely the case and in fact several times we questioned weather we had been followed by undercover military personnel the whole time.
One thing that I can’t help but talk about is how much we should appreciate the highway system that we have in the states. When we think about doing a cross country trip in the car. It brings a whole new meaning to that in Myanmar they do the same thing. But for long periods of time it looked and felt when I would look out the window that the driver was taking the huge bus off roading through the African brush, on complete dirt roads. Also the Myanmar bus rest stops were quit funny.


October 27th, 2005
So we arrived in Mandalay after 15 hours (of the closest comparison to hell I could imagine on the bus) over three hours late. We had a guide book (lonely planet it is for budget travel destination specific) that had several hotels listed for about 3 to 10 US a night. They were all there with signs with representatives. The first hotel we went to was full, but the second one had air-conditioned rooms. Although the electric fan, lights, and air-conditioning only worked around 6pm until early morning when the government decided to turn on the electricity. They were still serving breakfast room top which was on the fifth floor our rooms were on the fourth and there were definitely no elevators but what can you ask for at 8 US a night. Breakfast was good, with all kinds of fresh fruit, toast, eggs cooked to order.
Next we walked to the market which was not geared to tourists at all. Completely food and everyday necessities. Tons of great produce, but it was the routing fish and peaces of meat just laying on slabs in the hot hot sun making such an awful stench we had to run out or all of us would of thrown up. We ended up hiring a group of rickshaw drivers for the day for 6,000 kyat (pronounced chat) which was equal to 5 US for two people for the day. And these aren’t your typical motorcycle rickshaws or small truck ones. These were your little Burmese men who had a bike that had two seats on the side rickshaws. If there is one thing I can say taking us no telling how many miles and up a mountain they definitely worked for their money.
The first place that we went to was the Mandalay Royal Palace which dated back from AD 1850 or so. It was definitely amazing. It was two kilometers on each side with a moat around it that was probably 50 yards wide, then there was another fifty yards of grass, then a white was that was probably 20 feet in the air. In the center of each of the four sides was a draw bridge where you can enter but there is only one foreigner entrance with tons of signs saying the foreigners can only be in the very center where the kings oust to live. The rest inside the walls is military buildings that you are not aloud to see.
We then had the rickshaw drivers take us to their favorite restaurant that was an open air kitchen with very few walls. Shortly after we arrived I asked for them to show me where the restroom was they took me back through the kitchen through what seemed to be their house to the back where there was this bamboo wall that behind it had this thin concrete river thing that I guess you were suppose to do your business in. After this trip and especially after using all of Myanmar’s hole in the ground restrooms it will not matter how dirty the restrooms are in the states they still will not compare to those in Myanmar and other places in our travels during the past couple of months.
Lunch was kind of interesting, because there were hundreds of flies everywhere and one of the girls that was with us got out her fan to fan away the flies. Then they came around and handed us fans to use. But once lunch came out it was so funny one of the girls that worked there stayed there the whole time fanning us. Going from person to person trying to keep the bugs away. When lunch was finished it happened like it always does, the rickshaw drivers have us on the other side of town and decide they want to renegotiate the fare for the day. I stayed out of this one but one of the guys was able to reassure them that we wouldn’t be paying any more than the foreigner price (which is always higher) that we had already agreed on for the day. On the 20 or so minute ride back to the hotel it was kind of fun, because everyone was getting off work and everyone wanted to wave to us and for us to wave back to them again almost like a celebrity status of being an American in these countries.
That night we went down the street to have dinner, and then brought back some drinks to hang out the rest of the night on the 5th floor roof top which was a lot of fun. We ended up meeting the guy from England that was there on holiday for three weeks and got to talk politics and stuff. About ten o’clock the monastery that our hotel that was next to us started speaking over the loud speakers then we would hear the monks chant back. This went on throughout the night and into the morning when we woke up a little after 5 am to catch the boat to Bagan.

October 28th, 2005
We got to the boat around 5:30am to find out that it was full and that they would try to find a couple extra seats for us. Of course for 16US they did and we left around 6:15am. The boat was nice with three decks, the bottom with airline type chairs which we didn’t have one, the next had a restaurant (where we spent most of our time) as well as a covered deck, and the top and had just an open deck. I tried to nap until about lunch time, then we had a very interesting lunch. It was a lot like they say NY hot dogs, edible but you wouldn’t want to live off of them. We stopped several times at little villages along the way that had definitely been untouched by globalization. The women of the town as soon as they would see the ship would come running out into the water with trays on their heads with fruit and different food items. As well as hand made blankets (a lot like those in Mexico) that they wanted something like 500 kyats or less than 50 cents. We spent the rest of the afternoon on the top open aired deck playing different card games, which is actually illegal to have cards but…lots of things in Myanmar are illegal. I can’t even explain how beautiful the scenery was on the way there tons of little villages out farming and fishing in there hand carved wooden boats. Also onboard was the inter-port lecturer (who lived in Myanmar in the 80s) as well as two faculty members, the girl who did the amazing opera performance in the talent show, and another group of British people with their grandmother that was a Shan Prinecess many years ago.
When we got off the boat we decided to take one of the horse rickshaws to the golden express hotel in Bagan (you might be able to google it I am not sure) after paying the government tourist fee of 10 US. The hotel ended up having a room for 20US a night with ac. Which was exspensive comparitievly but it was completely worth it a very nice hotel. We took Gillian to the room who was very sick we thought from the boat ride but also got the stomach bug that I had that was going around. We ended up getting on the hotel bus that the group I spoke of above had rented for the rest of the evening. We went to a couple of pagodas which were everywhere. You wouldn’t believe, and they weren’t the white ones with the gold plated tops which I found to be rather ugly in the other towns, these were tarnished brick ones with architecture that you wouldn’t believe.
They ended up taking us to one of the three that you could climb up to the fourth story level. And when I get to the top, who is it but none other than the ships nurse that I had seen a few days before. Actually it was her and 30 students that were on an official SAS trip that were staying at our hotel.
Anyways the view was absolutely amazing with the pagodas everywhere. From the height you could also see the river that we were on and the mountains in the distance. This town had definitely been untouched. Oh, and then five minutes later who comes around the corner, but AJ and his group we both started dieing laughing. I mean we are in middle of Myanmar and of all of the Pogodas to have gone to for sunset. After we were talking come to find out that we had done about the same trip he was on but we had paid about 75% less but a lot of the difference was they were flying from place to place.
We ended up going to dinner with the same inter-port lecturer, faculty and students that was in the bus with us. And it was funny because everyone had their own idea of where we would go. Finally the one we decided on was behind us to the driver slowly backs up with the loud horn going beep beep beep beep. And who is sitting at the table next to ours same group of 6 or so French people that I think were pretty upset with having to be on the boat for the hole day with the loud Americans. After a long political debate at our table with the professors and such we made it back to our hotel. Which was definetly hopping, people everywhere and in the pool and such. It got pretty obnoxious so I decided to call it a night before things got too bad.


October 29th, 2005
The next morning I saw some of the kids and they had been woken up by the group leader and told that everyone on the SAS official group trip needed to meet them at the bus to have a chat about their behavior the night before. Apparently they found wallets passports etc. and even needed to drain the pool it got so bad.
We rented a horse rickshaw for the rest of the day for 9,000 kyat cheap cheap. Who took us around the whole town looking at several different Pagodas. Half way through the afternoon Megan got sick again so we took her back to the hotel and went to the market. It was a little better selling different goods like the longy. Which is a male kilt looking thing, I wore one but the only problem is that there are no pockets to put any of your stuff. Before we went out for the sunset Pagoda viewing we stopped at the hotel to inquire about massages at the hotel (BTW massages like the countless other things are illegal in Myanmar but the funny thing was there were signs all over town advertising for them). They said that I could have one whenever I wanted, so I scheduled one for 6:45 that evening for 2,000 kyat for an hour that is like 1.75 US. The Pagoda that the rickshaw driver took us to was amazing because we were the only ones there. We climbed up the steep steps to the third level and just sat there in silence watching the sunset over the mountains in the distance with thousands of Pagodas everywhere. The only noises that were heard were the crickets and a man about three hundred yards from us working by himself in the corn fields.
We returned later that evening just in time to have a cocktail and for me to go have my in room massage. It was interesting in the sense that I had never had a massage without oil and it was definitely much different from that I had, had at the Hyatt in Delhi. I for sure didn’t feel as beat up as I did after words in Delhi.
After the massage I meet some friends in the lobby who had meet a British couple he had decided to go back to get his MBA after ten years of owning and selling his own internet company. He is actually getting his MBA in Singapore with an institution called Insaid (I believe) which is based out of France. It sounded very interesting because you must speak at least two languages before you start and three by the time you are done. And with that said they will only take so many from each country and the purposely mix up the groups to get as much conflict in the groups.
Anyways we went to dinner that night at a local restaurant and I had some of the best fried jumbo shrimp in my life for like 1.50 US as well as French fries (who would have thought that I would of gotten so excited about French fries. We spent the rest of the evening at the hotel hanging out with friends over a bottle of the 50 cent Myanmar rum.

October 30th, 2005
Our flight left early this morning to Yangon. All I can really say about this day is while waiting for the bus to take us back to the ship I walked over to the internet café which was reasonably priced but it gave me my final reality of the military dictatorship that the poor people must live through every day. All the typical websites I wanted to go to I couldn’t. Such as Yahoo Mail, Yahoo, Google, etc etc etc. It was amazing infact the screen would say Access Denied, Access Denied, Access Denied.

October 31, 2005
Was a great night. I got together the US army shirt, Albertos camo shorts, a pair of camo kiddy binoculars, and a camo helmet for my costume as a war hero back in nam. ( and don’t forget that I shaved my beard off that I grew in Myanmar into a dirty stash some of you will get the inside joke others will have to wait to see the photos). Of course as a usual tradition AJ had to offend people so he went as a Buddhist Monk. A very conservative refrained typical AJ Buddhist Monk (lol). The shipped had arranged for the kids of the ship to be able to go around and trick or treat for thirty minutes then the rest of the community for the rest of the time. It was a lot of fun, and we gave out a lot of candy. When AJ and I went around there was one funny teacher who had a tray of dried crickets that she was giving out (which is a Myanmar delicacy). Of course I had to grab one to put in my bag. We later had a dance out by the pool that had been put on by one of the social committees that was lots of fun. They even had a costume contest one of my favorites was some kids who got together to make an auto-rickshaw out of cardboard. And I am sure you could only imagine the imagination that some of the 700 students were able to come up with for their costumes especially considering the different ports around the world that we had already been too.

November 3, 2005
Last night the Captain made its way through the …..Straight (on the side of Thailand) where there are known modern day pirates. He speed the boat up really fast and had crew on the sides of the ship with water hoses to shoot any boats that got too close to us. We arrived today though at the port of Singapore. Which is the country where in recent years they caned the American. It was really just a tease because the downtown was right in view but we weren’t aloud to get off. We were just there to take on fuel. AJ and I had thoughts of jumping off and swimming to downtown. But we figured our only trouble would be climbing back on the boat.
The sail away at sunset was amazing though. Especially as it got darker. Picture this it was like landing a plane in jersey and not crossing one of the bridges into NYC. I have two tests tomorrow and the crew is putting on a bar b que as we sail up the river during the day towards Ho Chi Min City on Saturday.

November 5, 2005

I got up bright and early this morning at 9am. Although my body woke me up at my usual 7:15 am then 8:15 am saying you are supposed to be up since you are on the ship. I was able to try and sleep in since we are not suppose to arrive in port until around 1pm or so. But I got up either way and made my way around the ship. It was kind of funny because all of the cabin stewards are just standing around out in the halls because everyone is asleep and there is nothing that they can do.
We are passing many small islands along the way that I think are all part of Vietnam but can’t be sure. The restaurant team is all out by the pool this morning setting up an SAS extravagant brek-b-que (a brunch bar b que) from 10:30 am to 12:30pm that sounds pretty promising. About that time is when we start down the river towards Ho Chi Min City. AJ and I are probably going to stay around the city for most of the time. But we might try to make our way to the Ming Kong Delta that is just a few hours drive south of the city.
I think it is very interesting that about half or a little under of the ship is all heading to Cambodia today or tomorrow with SAS. Everyone is now getting excited about the Ambassadors Ball which apparently is about to turn out as big as High School Prom but without the Limos. I thought that it was very funny that they made us all get in line and by the $25 tickets when everyone is going to go to it anyways. Apparently it is supposed to be like a five course meal with appetizers before and a champagne toast with a dance at ten that night. I believe this is all going to take place on November 28th or so.
Well I better run, as soon as I get off the ship we are going to head to one of the stores and start bargaining on our custom suites that we are going to have made. I love you and think of you often.